Saturn’s rings, as seen in the ultraviolet, show there is more ice toward the outer part of the rings than the inner part. This image was taken with the LASP-built Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS). (Courtesy NASA/JPL/University of Colorado)

Mission Introduction

Cassini completed its initial four-year mission to explore the Saturn System in June 2008 and the first extended mission, called the Cassini Equinox Mission, in September 2010. Now, the healthy spacecraft is seeking to make exciting new discoveries in a second extended mission called the Cassini Solstice Mission. The mission’s extension, which goes through September 2017, is named for the Saturnian summer solstice occurring in May 2017. The northern summer solstice marks the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere. Since Cassini arrived at Saturn just after the planet’s northern winter solstice, the extension will allow for the first study of a complete seasonal period.

Cassini launched in October 1997 with the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe. The probe was equipped with six instruments to study Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. It landed on Titan’s surface on Jan. 14, 2005, and returned spectacular results. Meanwhile, Cassini’s 12 instruments have returned a daily stream of data from Saturn’s system since arriving at Saturn in 2004. Among the most important targets of the mission are the moons Titan and Enceladus, as well as some of Saturn’s other icy moons. Towards the end of the mission, Cassini will make closer studies of the planet and its rings.

Approximately 1,300 academic and industrial partners in 16 European countries are participating in 32 different states in the US. The mission is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and for ESA by the European Space Technology and Research Center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The Italian Space Agency contributed the orbiter’s 4 meter diameter high-gain antenna for communications and portions of other orbiter science experiments. The United States supplied batteries and two science instruments for Huygens.

The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph Subsystem (UVIS) is a set of telescopes used to measure ultraviolet light from the Saturn system's atmospheres, rings, and surfaces. The UVIS also observes the fluctuations of starlight and sunlight as the sun and stars move behind the rings and the atmospheres of Titan and Saturn, and determines the atmospheric concentrations of hydrogen and deuterium. (Courtesy LASP)

LASP Roles

LASP provided:

The UltraViolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) instrument

UVIS instrument Principal Investigator, Larry Esposito

Operation/control of the UVIS instrument and its experiments

LASP Instrument

The Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) is part of the remote sensing payload of the Cassini Orbiter spacecraft.

UVIS science objectives include investigation of the:

Chemistry, clouds, and energy balance of the Titan and Saturn atmospheres